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Talk:Animal companion
Article naming clash There is a clash here. The feat is known as Animal Companion but there is a need to define what an Animal companion actually is. Might be worth moving the feat to something like "Animal Companion Feat" Enigmatic 01:31, 1 Oct 2005 (PDT) *or by using the 1 page to hold both articles.--Defunc7 02:55, 1 Oct 2005 (PDT) *Does this look better Animal Companion. The same thing was done with the Epic Spells. -- Pstarky 08:03, 1 Oct 2005 (PDT) :*looks fine, Just for future reference I don't think it's a very good idea to make multiple pages differentiated by a lower-case instead of capital letter (e.g. making "Animal companion" so it can co-exist with an "Animal Companion" page). If there's a page pre-existing with the same title, the new page's title should be sufficiently altered so the distinction is obvious. Merges or expansion of the original article's title can still occur, but for the period inbetween the pages will at least be recognisabley different.--Defunc7 08:14, 1 Oct 2005 (PDT) ::*Well there is some article's that will have the same headings but have more then one meaning like Darkness. It would be good to set up a disambiguation page from them, like darkness. -- Pstarky 08:32, 1 Oct 2005 (PDT) :::* Yep, that looks better :) As for the differenciation in just name alone I agree completely. For those things which have mutliple meanings (and truely are seperate) I think we need to be clear about the difference. Prime example being trap. Obviously this relates to a trap, while the tab on the properties dialog (also called trap) relates to trapping properties. Same goes for darkness, one is a spell (pitty "spell" isn't on all the articles), but the other is really an effect so I would use darkness effect as the other article Enigmatic 16:24, 1 Oct 2005 (PDT) *I think our other discussion was deleted, but I now cleaned up these articles. -- Austicke Animal Companions and Druid/Rangers So right now, I'm on the Legacy of the North server playing a half-elf who's presently Druid 5/Ranger 3, a combination which has proven pretty good for combining the melee capabilities of both Classes (namely, a Ranger's weapon proficiencies, Dual Wield and Favored Enemy, plus a Druid's Nature Sense and Wild Shape (for turning into a bear and buying her more time if the fight gets too rough on her Hit Points). Though Trackless Step was a redundancy, this combo also allows easy, persistent increases in Animal Empathy, a skill which I use with wild abandon. So I'm thinking of stopping Ranger at Level 5 (just enough for a second Favored Enemy) and possibly continuing on with Druid until I open up the Shifter PrC. But I've also tossed around the idea of skipping Shifter and keeping Ranger and Druid somewhat equal until she hits the server's Level 25 cap, in which case, what happens if my half-elf reaches Ranger 6? Will she have two different Animal Companions, or will she end up with the more preferable outcome of adding more Levels to the same Animal Companion (a regular Wolf, in her case), regardless of whether she's taking a Level in Ranger or in Druid? BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 07:33, February 7, 2017 (UTC) : The answer (from the animal companion feat article) is that neither happens. A druid/ranger PC will neither have two animal companions nor will the levels for the two classes add to give a higher level companion. - MrZork (talk) 16:28, February 10, 2017 (UTC) :: Clarify, please. If the Ranger class has an Animal Companion and the Druid class has an Animal Companion, yet the two Classes don't combine the Level progression for one companion (ie. a Druid 6/Ranger 5 with a 6-Hit-Die Wolf from the Druid side, taking a Level in Ranger to become Druid 6/Ranger 6 and ending up with a 7-Hit-Die Wolf, or perhaps a 7-Hit-Die Dire Rat if she decides to change horses midstream...), would that not be an end result of two animal companions? :: (To clarify myself, I don't mean two animal companions at the same time; ''I would expect that, if you take a Level in Druid and pick the Hawk for your companion, and then later take a Level in Ranger and pick the Wolf for your companion, then I would expect that the player could click on the Summon Animal Companion clickie under both the Ranger menu and the Druid menu, but going under the Druid menu would summon the Hawk in this case, while going under the Ranger menu would summon the Wolf instead. And the player's Druid/Ranger couldn't have both the Hawk and the Wolf on the field at the same time, just like how casting a Summon Creature spell will unsummon an existing pet summoned by a previous Summon Creature spell. Is this what you're saying?) BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 02:11, February 11, 2017 (UTC) ::: I haven't tested this myself in a long time. But, when exploring the BIC file format, it seems like only one animal companion is stored for a character, no matter which classes he has that grant him a companion. So, whichever the most recently taken class that allows selection of an animal companion on level-up will store that animal companion as part of the PC and that's what will be called when the summon feat is used. Presumably the higher level of ranger or druid is used to determine companion level (otherwise taking a low level in one or the other class would nerf a previously had higher-level companion), but that would be easy enough to test in a leveler. - MrZork (talk) 09:03, February 14, 2017 (UTC) :::: Actually, I just went through it in-game. In hindsight, I suppose that I never really needed to ask this question at all (save, perhaps, for the benefit of any other Wikia browsers who might be wondering the same thing); all I had to do was get my Druid/Ranger to the appropriate Level and find out firsthand. :) :::: :::: :::: :::: (Those five Levels in Ranger probably didn't do that wolf any favors; if my character had been a Level 10 Druid, that wolf would have 11 Hit Dice. Rangers seem to get a little bit gimped in the Animal Companion department.) :::: So then along came that magical moment where my swamp-dwelling, hillbilly-ish half-elf became a Level 11 character... :::: :::: :::: ...and I took advantage of the Cancel button to explore both possible paths. :::: :::: :::: So it turns out that, whether Jennsie Rae there became Druid 6/Ranger 5 or Druid 5/Ranger 6, her wolf became the exact same 7-Hit-Die wolf. A quick check of all the other types of Animal Companions confirmed pretty much the same thing: Most of them were 6-Hit-Die creatures (from either 6 Druid Levels or 5 Druid Levels plus 1 Ranger Level). The wolf could certainly benefit from the extra Hit Die; wolves are a bit wimpy. But that Fear howl is nice for breaking up the occasional horde. :) :::: So it seems that all Druid Levels plus any Ranger Level of 6 or higher contribute to the same animal companion and its Hit Dice. If the Ranger Class had come with its own new animal companion at Level 6, it would have been a 1- or 2-Hit-Die animal, as usual. So a Druid/Ranger doesn't get two Animal Companions in any way, shape or form; the dual Classes both just level up the same critter. :::: BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 09:42, February 15, 2017 (UTC) ::::* Clarify, please. Your Druid 6/Ranger 5 saw the same animal companion choices as a Druid 6, and your Druid 5/Ranger 6 saw the same animal companion choices as a Ranger 6. This is consistent with what you have already been told about the levels not adding to give a higher level companion. Yet somehow you came to the opposite conclusion? And for some reason you think a Ranger 6 gets a 1-hit die animal companion? --The Krit (talk) 02:34, February 19, 2017 (UTC) ::::* Rangers don't get to ''have animal companions until later than druids. But, once a ranger gets a companion, it will be the same level as that for a druid of the same level. In other words, a level 6 ranger has access to the same companions as a level 6 druid, not just to level 1 companions. - MrZork (talk) 18:19, February 19, 2017 (UTC) ::::* After finally biting the bullet and leveling said character up to Ranger 6/Druid 6, it all turned out like MrZork said. What threw me off was the animal companion's page in the level-up menu, showing the Animal Companion as being of a lesser Hit Dice count (something like 7 Hit Dice); once I finished leveling up, the wolf's actual Hit Dice were as they should be. This was on the Legacy of the North server, if that matters. Thank you, Zork. BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 07:27, September 28, 2017 (UTC)